Prime Minister Narendra Modi has yet again stressed on the need to have simultaneous elections across the country. He said this while addressing a meeting organised by NITI Aayog, which was attended by most States through their Chief Ministers or Lt Governors. The Government is clearly intent on developing a framework to hold simultaneous polls, and it wants that intent to be translated into action soon.
The Election Commission of India has already indicated its support to the idea, though it has also added that a lot of groundwork needs to be done. Simultaneous elections were the norm until the mid-sixties, but thereafter due to a host of political developments, the system collapsed and the nation plunged into election mode almost every year — with some State poll or the other happening. Not only were the general and the State elections taking place at different times, even local body elections had their own time-schedule.
This state of affairs, for a robust democracy, may seem not that bad. After all, who can have objections to free and fair elections? The more the merrier! But the grim reality is that frequent polls disrupt governance. State resources have to be marshalled time and again to conduct the process, and this impacts the day-to-day administration. Besides, given that polls invariably raise the political pitch and pit parties against one another, often bitterly, the process of cross-party consensus-building that is needed by Governments to effectively run an administration, becomes a victim. But many issues have to be satisfactorily sorted out before simultaneous polls are held. For instance, the possibility of a State regime being dismissed or collapsing for other reasons before its five-year term, must be factored. Does the State then remain under President’s Rule until the end of the five-year period?
Will the waiting period not be a mockery of the democratic spirit which holds that the people in a democracy must have their chosen representatives at the earliest? On the other hand, the price one pays for frequent polls is too high, and the situation cannot be allowed to continue. If simultaneous polls are to take place, constitutional changes are needed, which require support cutting across party lines. Is the Government in a position to muster that? As of now, the answer is ‘no’. This is the season of ‘opposition unity’ to take on Prime Minister Modi in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, and it’s unlikely that in a charged environment such as at present, the opposition parties will go along with the Prime Minister’s idea, even if they secretly agree with it.
Discussion about this post